


can we burn it slow

by cherrybites



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, M/M, bow down to me peasants i am the Queen of inconsistent writing styles, i'm throwing every cheesy and cliche trope that i know into this, klance is a metaphor for self care probably, neither does the author, pining keith but he's having a crisis, pining lance but he's in denial, they both don’t know what they’re doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrybites/pseuds/cherrybites
Summary: “Sweet dreams, pilot.” A wink. “Make sure not to drool over me too much.”Keith thrusts his middle finger over his shoulder as he steps out of the room, but he can't hold back the smile that kicks up the side of his mouth. When he dares a look back, just before the doors are about to slide shut, he sees Lance kiss his fingertips and blow air over his palms at Keith.It makes Keith wonder if it’s possible to fall any harder._In which alternating snapshots between Keith and Lance lead to their eventual relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this was only supposed to be, like, 10k. but i've been working on this since november, mostly in my spare time, and the entirety of the fic has turned to 20k
> 
> 2) i'm lazy and hate mass editing, so i'm splitting it into 3 parts
> 
> 3) all the scenes are in chronological order

* * *

 

Lance’s life in space dictates that not a day should go by without him stumbling across some unexpected phenomenon. Which is fair enough, considering his unwanted role as a paladin. He’s learned to readjust.

He likes to believe that, with two years of fighting in a mechanical cat slapped onto his track record, there’s not much that can faze him.

But Keith strolling into the lounge room with just a pair of sweatpants on and a towel slung over his shoulder is something that unwillingly snags Lance’s attention, causes his brain to short-circuit, and unspools his tightly-woven coil of placidity in one go.

He flounders against the couch, nearly losing his grip on his milkshake in the process. The rest of the team isn’t here – they’re scattered all over the castle, doing their own thing amid the rare lapse of Galra-free activity. Which means, if Keith were to elicit a conversation, Lance would be the only one in the room who would have to respond. All while feigning indifference.

He takes a moment to convince himself that he is, in fact, indifferent to a half-naked Keith appearing in his periphery because a) he’s seen Keith shirtless multiple times before, duh, and b) there aren’t even any rules that are preventing Keith from wandering around like he’s on his way to sponsor Vogue Hommes or something.

If Lance also, by any chance, somehow notes how much more defined Keith’s stomach has gotten since the last time he saw it, he wholeheartedly chalks it up to the oncoming brain freeze his milkshake is about to deliver him.

Keith hasn’t notice him yet, though. He’s absentmindedly running the towel over his face and the top of his damp hair. Lance takes this as an opportunity to frantically scan the room for something that can make him look occupied, locates a book discarded near the end of the settee, snatches it up with his free hand, and proceeds to crack it open.

He thumbs through it with his face scrunched up tight, trying to appear as deeply engrossed as he can. Not that he would have been able to focus, per se. The entire print is in Altean.

“Hey.” Keith walks over to him, but then stops short, as if hesitant to disrupt his reading.

Lance, being the good theatre kid he is, keeps up the charade by making a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat and delicately flipping to the next page.

“Uh, what are you reading?”

He pushes the book higher towards his face, emphasizing its presence with a frown, saying, “I’m reading an anthology. On… the history of things. That happened in Altea.”

 “Upside down?” Keith asks, brows lifting.

They both look to see that he isn’t exactly wrong, as the book might be what some may deem ‘upside down’, if they are really so pathetically bound to space and time. But yeah. It’s upside down.

“I like to challenge myself, unlike some people I could mention. It’s all about progress, man. Evolution. I am above you in the totem pole of life.”

Keith gives a derisive snort. He flips the towel from his head and uses it to carefully blot the water drops off his arm. “If you say so.”

Lance sniffs and makes a pointed effort not to make eye contact with Keith as he asks, “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Can’t find my shirt anywhere. I looked all over the castle, and this is the last place I could think of.”

“Maybe Kaltenecker ate it?” Lance suggests, innocent as ever. He doesn’t bother to point out that Keith has several other variations of the same dark-grey shirt (which Keith still claims is actually “navy blue”, but since Lance is a bonafide intellectual and Keith is just a moody brood who somehow believes that wearing at least two kinds of leather makes him appear cooler, Keith’s input on the matter is synonymous with all things insignificant).

“What?” Keith says, looking vaguely offended. “Why would she eat my shirt?”

“Dunno. Maybe your sweaty clothes are just something that cattle find naturally nutritious for their diet. Don’t ask me, Kogane.”

“Lance.” Keith’s eyes flash dangerously. “Did you have something to do with this?”

The boy in question, with an airy whistle, brings the book up ever so closer to his face.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, Mullet. Are you accusing me of committing a crime? Where’s the hard-boiled evidence? The motive? I want an attorney.”

Keith squints at him, as if determining whether Lance is about to pull the rug out from underneath him or something. “Did you make the cow eat my shirt or not?”

“I plead the fifth.”

Okay, so maybe, _maybe_ , Lance had tripped over the laundry hamper this morning and found his face shoved into Keith’s shirt, which may or may not have smelled sort of pleasant, and he may or may not have sniffed it some more until he realized what he was doing, panicked, and carelessly pitched it out the port window overlooking the castle ship's miniature field. It's not his fault that it happened to conveniently land at Kaltenecker’s feet.

At the time, it didn’t seem like such a problem, mainly because there’s not much that can cause his cow indigestion, and also because the prospect of making Keith lose his cool had outweighed any of his other worries. But now that he’s facing the consequences (re: Keith’s shredded abdomen) he’s sort of reconsidering his life choices. And having an internal, quasi-irrational, panic-induced crisis.

Keith levels a heavy glare at him. He’s standing directly in front of Lance now, arms folded over his chest, mouth pursed into a thin, rigid line. His jaw flexes, as if he’s trying to piece together a well-delivered retort, but nothing seems to be coming out.

Lance takes a large slurp of his milkshake. Blows off an imaginary speck of dust from the spine of his book. Continues to flip through the pages.

  

And if, in the coming weeks, Keith wanders a handful of times in front of Lance without his shirt on – very _deliberately,_ Lance may add, because Keith doesn’t hide his obvious enjoyment at Lance’s squirming – then Lance stubbornly chooses to remain oblivious.

 

>>>

 

Some people are addicted to meth. Keith is addicted to stabbing inanimate objects with repeated fervor until he’s worked out his frustrations.

These days, a lot of the stabbing is because of Lance.

He doesn’t even have a specific _reason._ It’s like, every time he so much as has a normal conversation with Lance, he feels himself psychoanalyzing every little thing that comes out of his mouth. Even a little shoulder brush sends his pulse into overdrive. It’s like his semi-fucked brain is filling up with supernovas, but it’s not even aware of that yet.

 _You_ useless _gay_ , he thinks to himself, ripping apart a sequined throw pillow with so much force that a cloud of stuffing explodes in his face. He’s beginning to realize, somewhat grudgingly, that Lance is becoming a danger to his hard-earned neutrality. Thinking about him tends to give Keith an unwanted hitch in his lungs.

On top of that, it’s nearly impossible to keep his impulsive excuse of a body from launching in front of his overzealous teammate whenever he becomes a target in battle. Which Keith knows, considering Lance’s freakishly predictive aim, is overly redundant and unnecessary. He’s seen firsthand what Lance is capable of.

But it’s apparent that both Keith’s mind and body seem to think otherwise.

He stabs at the immobile couch cushion in front of him and snarls at it. “I. Don’t. Have. Time. For. This!” Each word is punctuated by a slash in the next cushion. Stuffing oozes out of the slits and drifts to the floor like puffs of snow.

“Woah, dude. Are you okay?”

Keith pauses his slaughter to glance over his shoulder, where Matt is standing at the doorway, paused mid-bite from a bowl of green goo balanced under his chin.

“Yeah.” Keith tries to look dignified. “Nothing going on here.”

Matt sticks his spoon inside of his mouth, swallows its contents, and gestures at the poor couch cushion. “What did the throw pillow ever do to you? You do know there’s a training room where you can let off steam by fighting bots, right?”

When Keith doesn’t respond, Matt starts to nod, expression grave. “I see,” he says. “This is more than just trying to let out steam, isn’t it?”

Keith considers denying it, but then shrugs in lieu of a reply.

Matt waits for him to continue, but Keith still doesn’t elaborate. The older Holt sibling may be easy enough to get along with, but the moment he’s let in on a single private matter, he’s veering towards either Allura or Shiro to mouth off. He’s almost as bad as Hunk, which is saying a lot — the yellow paladin is shameless when it comes to gossip. Hunk’s grapevine seems to mysteriously extend beyond just the paladins and over to the random alien allies they’ve made in the past.

With a resigned chuckle, Matt shakes his head and turns around to leave, still slurping at what Keith is pretty sure is his fifth bowl of goo today.

He waits until the sound of Matt’s footsteps recedes before turning back to the destructed couch cushion. A groan slips out of him when he realizes how big of a mess he’s made on the floor. And Matt, he knows, is already on his way to cheerfully inform Allura of all the maiming Keith has done to her sparkly throw pillows.

She’s going to murder him.

 

>>>

 

In Lance’s humble but entirely correct opinion, he shouldn’t be left to wander around unsupervised when he’s got his datapad on him. Like, how does everyone expect him to stay put on a scope-out mission when he’s on a planet that’s lush with greenery and _not_ , against his better judgement, take as many impromptu selfies as he can?

Even if, admittedly, said selfies lead him into climbing a tall, tree-like plant like some humanoid squirrel jacked up on stimulants. It’s a feat that soon leads to a slow and dawning realization that he can’t climb back down unless he wants a broken limb or two.

“On the bright side,” he muses, “the view is quite striking.”

When he peeks a longer look downward, his lunch threatens to lurch right out of his mouth, and a disorienting dizziness has him quickly turning back to face the plant-slash-tree thing. Of course he has to get stuck in an abnormally large tree on the one day he doesn’t have his armour on. His jet pack would’ve saved him a lot of trouble.

 _Houston,_  his subconscious screams at him, _we’ve got a major fucking problem._

He’s in the middle of grumbling curses under his breath and hugging a branch for dear life when he hears the sound of muted laughter from below. On instinct, his jaw tightens, and with it, a familiar flare of heat starts to unfurl in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t need to look down to know who the laugh belongs to.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he calls back, trying to sound dignified.

“Really?” Keith’s voice is thick with amusement. “Because to me, it looks like you’re cowering on top of a tree.”

“Me? Cowering? Not at all.” Lance attempts to look blasé. “Just chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’, all cool. Breathing oxygen from the tree. Because, you know, it’s a plant.” _Stop rambling,_  he tells himself, frantic, but it’s like his mouth has a mind of its own. “Very oxygenated, this air is. You’re really missing out on the whole experience.”

“Yeah? How’s the weather up there? A bit chilly?”

Lance has to admit that it is, in fact, chilly at this height. He can feel a cool draft working its way down his jeans.  

He shakes a fist down at Keith. “Shut up! Getting stuck trying to take a decent selfie was totally accidental. Plus, the lighting over here is to die for. Really brings out the glow in my complexion. Just saying.” His hands scrabble for purchase as they slip a bit against the plant’s rough exterior. “But that’s beside the point! Can you – stop laughing! – can you just come and get me down somehow?”

“Nah, I don’t know if I can. Maybe I’ll just call Pidge over here so she can record this. Then she can distribute the tape all over the galaxy.”

An outrageous shriek flies out of Lance’s mouth before he can stuff it back in. “Don’t you dare!”

Keith hooks his thumbs into the loopholes of his belt and takes several giant strides backward. Even from this height Lance can see the corner of his mouth crinkling with restrained laughter.

Lance figures he has two options: a) let Keith get Pidge or b) beg for mercy and face eternal ridicule.

Eventually, after pondering over this for a considerable amount of time, he decides to veto both choices. He’s _Lance McClain_. He doesn’t do embarrassment, nor does he grovel at the feet of anyone, let alone the feet of a mullet-sporting hellion like Keith.

“Come on, Keith. Amigo. Chum. Just help out a bud in need.”

In response, he gets two brows raised in a show of severe enlightenment.

“I gotta take a leak,” Lance tries.

The brows furrow. “Can’t you hold it in?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I can’t hold it in. I’m bursting right now, Kogane. Absolutely _bursting._ Chugged, like, two cups of Coran’s space decaf this morning and – _Ohh._ I think I can feel it leaking down my – oh, man, it’s _so_ warm – “

“Oh my god, fine! I’ll help. Spare me the details.”

A triumphant smile spreads across Lance’s lips.

Keith treads closer until he’s standing directly beneath Lance. He looks up, squinting, then raises a hand to shield his eyes. Watery-red sunlight filters through the foliage and casts a warm shadow over him, slicing his face into ribbons of pale, smooth skin and fiery oranges. Forgetting about his suspended position in the air for a moment, Lance watches Keith with a frown, feeling a peculiar sense of _something_ stir inside him.

This planet’s star isn’t even remotely close to the hot and searing heat under Cuba’s sun – a place he can easily recall summer afternoons spent with his sun-darkened body running along the beachfront – but looking down now, he thinks that Keith’s face, softened by the dusty, orange glow, reminds him a teeny bit of that Cuban sun.

But just a teeny bit.

“Okay”, Keith says, sounding like he’s carefully trying to choose his next words. “Do you trust me?”

“Uh,” Lance says. “Is that a trick question?”

“Do. You. Trust me? Because I want you to let go.”

Realization dawns on Lance, and he nearly chokes on his spit in his mad dash to sputter out a long stream of outraged proclamations.

“Are you nuts?” he yells. “Trusting you to not get me impaled in battle and trusting you to catch me from all the way down there are two completely different things.”

“But you do? Even a little?”

“Yes,” Lance says, without thinking. “But –“

“Then jump. I’m stronger than I look.”

Right. Galra blood and all.

Lance lets a huff of breath escape his lips, but doesn’t give himself enough time to mull over everything that could go wrong. Whatever. If his untimely death happens to come in the form of a splat on the ground, then at least the blame will be pinned on Keith and shatter his emo-space-ninja notoriety forever.

He takes a quick, dramatic selfie of his terrified face with the datapad before squeezing his eyes shut, muttering a ‘time to blast’ under his breath, and then letting his grip on the tree go slack.

Before he knows it, air is rushing past him and his heart feels like it’s trying to claw right out of his throat. He screams, but the sound is swallowed away by the shrill whistle of the wind. The weightlessness is an entirely different kind of sensation to when he’s nose-diving at rapid speed in his lion – here, his amount of control is next to nada.

His eyes remain closed, even when he finds that the dropping sensation has abruptly given away. “Is it over?” he mumbles. “Am I dead? Is there a Lance-shaped imprint on the ground?”

“ _Lance_. Just open your eyes.”

He pries one eye open, then the next. With a crane of his neck and a quick scan of his surroundings, he discovers that he is decidedly not, in fact, flattened into a pancake-like mixture on the planet’s terrain. All his limbs seem intact, which he duly considers an instant win. He turns his head back around and immediately regrets it when he’s met with an uncomfortably close, front-and-center view of Keith’s face.

In all the cases he’s gotten up into Keith’s face – most of them being the direct result of an explosive argument – he’s never paused long enough to catalogue the entirety of Keith’s appearance. It’s not like he’s ever had _reason_ to.

He tilts his head, curious, and examines the features before him like a sculptor assessing his model, barely even registering the flustered scrunch of Keith’s face.

Dusky, violet eyes tinged with grey. The gentle incline of his nose. A small scar near the corner of his mouth. The slight jut of his lower lip, chapped and in dire need of some Vaseline. If he squints and tilts his head just so, he can acknowledge that it’s not a _terrible_ face. Adequate, even. Seriously. Who does this guy _think_ he is?

Lance supposes that, if there ever came a chance, he wouldn’t mind getting a palette knife and running it through a cream of paint, pressing it onto the canvas, and letting the tool slip and slide along the surface, angular and firm in an approximate likeness of Keith’s face.

Awesome. Now he’s waxing poetic about his teammate’s aesthetics like a complete weirdo.

Keith clears his throat a bit louder than necessary, which is when Lance notices that his arms are still encircling Keith’s neck like some spooked koala bear. Keith’s are locked in a firm grip beneath Lance’s knees and back, holding him up. And, yeah, okay. Maybe he can grudgingly admit that Keith is stronger than he looks.

“Thanks,” he says, simple and to the point.

After a pause, Keith gives him an uncertain nod.

Another pause stretches out between them, in which neither of them makes the first move to disentangle themselves.

But then, finally, Lance cocks his head to the side and tries to defuse the awkwardness with a flash of his teeth. “So,” he hears himself say. “You letting go of me anytime soon? Or are you just going to fondle me some more?”

“I’m not _fondling_ you,” Keith says, eyes widening just the tiniest bit. “Get over yourself.”

At this, Lance throws his head back and lets out a full-blown cackle, knowing that it’ll only make Keith’s blood boil.

He’s not even mad when he gets dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

 

>>>

 

Turning off the zero-G after nearly getting obliterated on a mission isn’t Keith’s version of a breather. All he wants to do is take a scalding hot shower and rest his aching limbs, maybe even catch a dreamless sleep for once. But when Lance bounced over to him, eyes twinkling with mischief as he proposed his brilliant idea, Keith – as per usual when it comes to Lance – found that the word _no_ didn’t exist in his vocabulary anymore.

Which is why, fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and free of any grime in parts of his body he didn’t even know he could get grime in, he’s standing in front of a set of doors adjacent to the control room. He enters just in time to see Lance hurling a shrieking Pidge through the air like a humanoid missile. Hunk and Matt, on the other hand, seem to be helping Allura juggle her floating mice in the air like they're a part of some intergalactic circus union. It's only after several lack-luster attempts that they decide to finally let the mice run free. Or as free as mice can get in a chamber with no gravity. 

As Keith navigates past them, he’s startled to find Pidge – still shrieking – careen past him, hitting up against his side on her way. He’s whirled around, body abruptly rotating until his feet are sticking skyward and his head is floating mere inches above the ground.

“Watch it,” he grumbles. He pushes his palms against the floor and uses it as leverage to propel himself higher, peering over his shoulder as he does so. Pidge’s legs are wrapped around one of the pipes protruding out of the wall in an effort to keep herself from floating away.

“Sorry,” she says with a sheepish grin. “Lance and I made a bet to see how far he could launch me.”

With a glance back, Keith finds said boy floating over to them with a superior look etched onto his face. He flexes his arms several times, points at the swell of his biceps, and then gives each one a ridiculously loud ‘mwah’ kiss.

“These guns never let me down,” he says with a wink. “Bets over, Pidge. I get to use the headset for another week. _Without_ you getting on my case.”

Pidge throws her hands up into the air. “How was I supposed to know you were actually hitting the training room hard? Last time I checked, you tried to fake three different kinds of alien plagues to get out of mandatory training.”

“Okay, first of all, I have a weak immune system and catch things easily. Second, I can’t let my rival one-up me.”

Lance jabs an accusatory finger towards Keith, though it’s hard to take him seriously when the lack of gravity keeps making tufts of his hair stick out in every direction.

“If you think you can out-do me in the buff department, you’re wrong.”

Keith squints at him. He’s somehow had this notion that, after the pivotal direction their relationship had taken post lion-switching, Lance had put their “rivalry’ aside. Apparently not.

“You think I’m – what – more ripped than you?” The words come out of his mouth with a bite of incredulity.

“No, I think that _you_ think that you can somehow _get_ more ripped than me by routinely working out in the middle of the night. There’s a difference.”

Keith opens his mouth, then closes it again with an audible click. He wants to tell Lance that the only reason he’s been going to the training room so late at night is that he can’t sleep. Not that he’s ever been able to sleep, per se, and on the rare occasions he does, it’s usually for an unproportionate number of hours before he’s dragged out of it by of his nightmares.

Yet lately, his nightmares have gotten worse. He’s been making a conscious effort to avoid his bed while the rest of the occupants in the castle are sound asleep. He finds it easier to exhaust himself on the training deck, slamming through one level to the next, rather than waking up with his whole body coated in sweat and his subconscious screaming a cacophony of different warnings at him.

He didn’t think Lance, of all people, would keep tabs on his nightly procedures, especially considering how stubborn he is about keeping his eyebags as nonexistent as possible. Keith’s not sure whether he wants to let himself feel flattered about this or not.

After a moment of consideration, he decides to keep his reasons to himself. He doesn’t want Lance, or anyone else in the room, for that matter, to pepper him with questions he’d rather not give answers to.  

He tries for a shrug and says, “But you’re admitting that you see me as a threat. I think that says a lot.”

At this, Lance’s eyes take on a mischievous spark. The corners of his mouth lift, and somewhere behind Keith, Pidge blows out an exasperated sigh. He doesn’t need to turn around to see that she’s probably rolling her eyes, too.

In all things considered, he should’ve expected this. Keith should’ve known that to provoke someone as competitive as Lance wouldn’t end in anything but a wild chase around the room, regardless of there being gravity or not.

He supposes that maybe, somewhere along the back of his mind, he was counting on it.

When Lance catapults over to him, the grin on his lips turning almost wolfish, Keith feels something stir in the pit of his belly. It’s a feeling like deep-seated satisfaction, or perhaps a little more beyond that, something he can’t quite put into the right words. He pushes it down and gives a hard shake of his head. Later.

He lunges out of the way a split-second before Lance can tackle him, and he’s surprised to find a bubble of laughter erupting out of his throat as he watches Lance’s floundering hands. It doesn’t last long. Before Keith can yank his body out of range again, Lance has pounced on him, legs wrapped around Keith’s abdomen, elbows digging into his shoulders with a surprising amount of strength.

Keith struggles against his grip. His legs flail in midair as he tries to throw Lance’s weight off his back. He only succeeds in drifting them higher, almost until their heads are barely grazing the ceiling.

“This is ridiculous –“ he starts, but gets drowned out by Lance’s triumphant crowing.

“Square up, Kogane,” he says, a grin evident in his voice. “Let’s see what all that time on the training deck has really done for you.”

“Please. You really think you can be much of a challenge? Last I checked, anything involving close-range combat is a miss for you.”

“Maybe not. But you’ve seen me in battle before. I’m a strategist.”

“And exactly what kind of strategy are you going to impose?”

Lance wiggles his outstretched fingers. “The kind that involves me figuring out your weakest spots.”

“What are you –“

To Keith’s horror, a sound that he’s never emitted before escapes out of his throat. Lance’s fingers – on his torso – are probing him. Just the barest brush of fingers against his shirt, but it’s enough to send Keith squirming.

“Well hey,” Lance says, surprised. Keith squints out of the corner of his eyes and sees a flash of those proverbial dimples. “ _Someone’s_ a little ticklish.”

Keith is still trying to wriggle away like an earthworm, all his defenses single-handedly crumbling before him. “What are you _doing_ to me? Is this some twisted form of torture? An attack?” He’s about to add something else, but an uncharacteristic squeak of laughter shoots out of his mouth before he can stuff it back in, making his limbs kick out like he’s either having the world’s deadliest seizure or performing an elaborate rendition of the hokey pokey dance.

It’s like he’s suddenly lost the ability to control his entire body, and all his sensitive areas – mostly around his torso and stomach – feel like they’re being attacked by an alien force.

“Aw, Keith, have you never been tickled before? Are you a tickle-virgin?”

“I’m – not – a tickle-virgin,” Keith gasps out between uncontrollable hiccups of laughter. “What the hell even is that?”

“Hey, Hunk!” Lance calls out, voice far too smug for Keith’s liking. “Keith’s a tickle-virgin!”

“No way! For real?” Hunk’s voice projects from all the way across the other end of the room, but Keith’s too preoccupied to look over and see his expression or catch his next set of words. He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but he’s certain he also hears a small laugh come out of Allura.

“I’m going to elbow you in the nuts,” he seethes, making one last effort to ditch Lance’s grasp.

Lance leans over and sticks out his tongue in Keith’s face.  “No need to be so crass, mullet man. I didn’t know someone as thorny as you could dissolve into laughter with just a single poke to the belly.”

He wags his tongue even more. It's such an infuriatingly cute expression that Keith almost lets out a groan –  all he wants to do right now is tug himself free so he can go and bury his face in his hands.

“It wasn’t a poke, and you know it!”

Lance pokes him in the belly button, just to prove his point, and Keith’s muscles instantly clench, his flight-or-fight response kicking in before he’s able to stop it. His entire body feels on high-alert, but it's more to do with the fact that he's _literally_ in Lance's arms. He's got Lance's entire front pressed against his backside, warm and solid and close enough that Keith can catch a faint whiff of something distinctly boyish and soapy. _Damn,_ he thinks. So this is what it's like to be wrapped up in a cute boy's arms.  

He feels a stab of annoyance at himself for that unwelcome thought, but then he gets distracted by another soft, teasing poke from Lance.

“This is so not fair,” Keith says, trying to disguise another involuntary laugh. He makes a half-hearted attempt to kick Lance away, but somehow, Lance has trapped his legs between his own, blocking any possible retreat, and is now proceeding to tickle him even further. His fingers graze just a little above Keith’s hipbone, sending another spike of warmth coursing through his body. 

Yet, because Keith is a touch-starved boy who may or may not have a thing for boys with long limbs and an infectious laugh, he doesn’t let himself mind the whole ordeal as much as he desperately wants to.

“Dude. This is, like, even better than discovering that you sleep in your day clothes. Now I have something that I can actually use against you. For leverage, of course.”

Absolutely. Not. Fair.

“Chillax, Keith,” Pidge says, floating over to them. She gives Lance's hand placements a single, assessing glance, then turns back to Keith’s squirming body without an ounce of sympathy. “Getting tickled is actually pretty healthy for you. Certain studies show that it strengthens digestion and abdominal muscles. Plus, it increases blood circulation, produces a higher supply of dopamine, speeds up brain functions for optimal cognition, blah, blah. You get the drift.”

Lance lets out an impressed huff of laughter, making the tufts of hair curling near the nape of Keith’s neck fly up. “Hear that, Keith?" His voice is almost a murmur against Keith's skin. "I’m actually helping you out here.”

Keith scrunches up his nose, trying as hard as he can to wipe away whatever kind of _whipped_ expression he has. “I’m pretty sure you made half of that up,” he says to Pidge, who shrugs at the pointed look he gives her and lazily begins to backstroke her way down. 

For just a fraction of second, Lance’s grip on him relaxes, and Keith uses that spare moment to twist out of range, his glove-clad hands instantly seizing Lance’s wrists to prevent them from coming near his stomach again. Unfazed, Lance just shoots him another heart-stopping grin.

“I’m going to get you back for this,” Keith promises.

“I’d like to see you try. I’m not the least bit ticklish.”

Keith arches a brow.

“Not even a little,” Lance adds, chest puffing out proudly.

Keith’s mouth pops open to make an off-handed remark, but then he pauses, his brain finally processing the warm skin pressed under his fingertips. He lets his gaze fall to where his hand is resting. His forehead crinkles as he examines the contrast of his own fingers to Lance’s, which are a lot longer and nimbler — kind of like a pianist. Briefly, he wonders if Lance knows how to play any instruments. Another moment of scrutiny leads to the discovery that his hands are a lot less calloused, too, even with the small smatter of scars across his knuckles. 

“Um, Keith? Something wrong?”

“Nothing. Uh. Your hands are just really soft,” Keith says, then promptly proceeds to blush, horrified at his own words, because – wow. He’s a certified fucking moron. He can feel the heat washing up his throat as panic twists itself into a painful knot in the pit of his stomach.

Not for the first time, he wishes his life could come with a trapdoor. Just a little exit hatch he can disappear through when he mortifies himself to the nth degree. 

“It’s called moisturizing, buddy,” Lance preaches, sounding more matter-of-fact than weirded out by Keith’s outburst. “You should try it.”

At this, Keith gives Lance a small shove in the shoulder, barely containing any force in it, but the lack of gravity sends him veering away like an off-kilter ballet dancer. Lance’s surprised laughter fills up the entire room as he body-slams into Pidge, who up until this point, had been in the middle of balancing her glasses on the toes of her sneakers.

Hearing Lance’s carefree laugh, it makes something in Keith’s chest twinge. It feels like the unfurling of a large and unwanted butterfly, one that’s been slowly making its presence known inside of him instead of dissipating like he hoped. He wants to swat it away. He wants to squash it in the palm of his hand. Anything, really, to get rid of it.

But once he steps out of the room, feet rooted back to the ground, the uncomfortable realization that he doesn’t know _how_ strikes him like a vicious blow.

 

>>>

 

It’s several days later, somewhere between taking a long, exhausted shower and getting ready for bed, when Lance is hit with a profoundly ground-breaking realization.

He and Keith have reached a grudging camaraderie. Not that he’s deluding himself into thinking that in the two years they’ve been in space together, they’ve dismantled their ‘rivalry’ altogether and become buddy-buddy, but they’ve come far enough to at least respect each other. To a degree.

With a hum, Lance slips on his Altean robe and starts to smooth out the front of it, then looks in the mirror and gives himself a tantalizingly goofy wink.

He walks out of the Altean equivalent of a bathroom and wracks his brain for a reason why he and Keith being friends is such a startling concept. They’ve had more than their share of moments where they’ve let themselves be vulnerable with each other. They’ve taken the brunt of enemy blows for one another on more than several occasions. They’d co-lead missions during Shiro’s absence. Yet Lance has taken all of that into stride – he’s chalked it up to teamwork, or perhaps just a level of mutual tolerance that they’ve had to construct to get through these two years in space.

He’s still thinking about this as he makes his way over to the kitchen, opting for some last-minute ingredients for his evening face regimen. When he finds the lights already on and a slightly rumpled Keith at the table with a bowl of heated goo, the answer finally strikes him. He and Keith have never outwardly _discussed_ this so-called friendship. Heck, Lance isn’t even sure if Keith considers them friends.

The thought settles something strangely distasteful in the pit of his stomach.

With a loud whistle, Lance saunters into the room and heads straight for the fridge. He pulls out some goo and a vial of citrus-y liquid he can’t pronounce the name of (but what has immensely contributed to the glow of his complexion in the last week or so). Once he’s gathered the rest of the ingredients, he plops down next to Keith and starts combining them all into a small bowl.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, ever the conversationalist.

Keith lifts a shoulder. “Bad dreams, as usual. Training deck isn’t really cutting it for me right now.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable. The last nightmare I had still gives me hives. I think you were in it too, actually.”

Keith puts a pause to his food-picking and quirks a brow at Lance.

“It was a dream about starting a dating service for fish called solemate.com. No idea why you were in it, but I think you were mostly there to give me moral support.” He scratches the back of his neck and gives an awkward little roll of his shoulders, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that Keith's undivided attention is laser-focused on him. “Or, now that I think about it, maybe you were just there for decorative purposes.” 

He’s met with a blank stare. Then, Keith bursts into a fit of laughter so abrupt that he nearly spills the contents of his bowl onto his lap. His shoulders start to quake and his head dips back ever so slightly, causing his insane fluff of hair to flop away from his forehead. Lance’s ears instantly perk up. He can’t help the pleasant little current that goes through him. _I did that,_ he thinks in amazement. _I 'm really out here, making Keith fucking Kogane laugh his butt off._

Lance schools his expression into something that closely resembles disdain, which leads to Keith trying to mask his laugh with an unconvincing cough.

“It’s not funny! It’s probably the weirdest dream I’ve ever had. Which is saying a lot, because I’ve had ones that included Zarkon, the U.S. president, and a taxi driver all in the same steamboat.”

This only switches the coughing into more snorts of laughter.

Lance swings his arms expansively. “Here I am, trying to tell you about this wonderfully awful dream I had, which includes you, by the way, and all I’m getting is a lot of unwarranted judgement. Like, how am I supposed to tell you nice things like this when all I get in return is a laugh in the face? Don’t answer that. You’re going to say something soul-crushing, I know it.”

“You have such a dumb flair for the dramatic, don’t you?”

“It’s one of my more enduring qualities.”

With a shake of his head, Keith goes back to sipping at his bowl of goo, but there’s a distinct curve to his lips now.

Lance dips a finger into the concoction he’s made, trying to see if the consistency is right. He adds in a few drops of citrusy liquid, pauses, ponders, and decides on two more. When he’s satisfied with it, he contemplates retreating into his room and calling it a night, but then falters. He might as well get this over with. Even if his ego is on the line.

“Keith,” he says, hesitant, but then with a little more certainty, “Are we friends?”

Keith looks startled. He opens his mouth, then shuts it closed again. For a brief, terrifying second, Lance expects him to snort, or roll his eyes, or simply get up from the table and leave. But he seems to be genuinely considering the question. His dark eyes are fixated on Lance's face, unblinking, as if evaluating what sort of answer to give.  

Eventually, he shrugs. “Do _you_ think so?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Lance flicks some of his concoction at Keith’s face. “Do friends fling goo at each other?”

Keith, with a sputter, wipes the sludgy substance off his cheek and hops out of his seat, snatching his own bowl with the reflexes of a seasoned boy-soldier.

“Do friends,” he says as a teasing glint enters his eyes, “do this?”

And then he unceremoniously tosses a handful of goo onto Lance’s hair.

“Oh, it is _on_!”

Lance shoves out of his chair and narrowly avoids another hit as he sprints towards the goo dispenser. He snatches the long pipe off its hook and waves the nozzle in front of him threateningly, one finger already pushing down against the spray trigger.

“Keith, I hope you told your knife collection that you love them today, because you are _going to die_.”

Keith’s eyes widen. He immediately hose-drops to the ground as Lance narrows his eyes and lunges forward. Keith darts backward, ducks, and sprints around to the other side of the long counter, mirroring Lance’s movements exactly so that they’re constantly shuffling around the counter at different ends. When Lance books it to the right, Keith does too, bowl still held aloft.

“Stay in one place, Mullet!”

“Come on, sharpshooter. Afraid you can’t hit me from all the way there?”

“Your ass,” Lance announces, making another fake-out to the right, “is grass, you hear me?”

Keith’s absurd, fluffy hair poofs out over his eyes as he tilts his head to the side, giving Lance an achingly radiant smirk. “Sorry,” he drawls. “I can’t hear you over my lack of terror.”

With renowned fervor, Lance dives over the counter, yanking the hose along with him. Before Keith can make a break for it, Lance has the nozzle spraying sticky green substance all over his head, face, and the upper half of his shirt. In a matter of seconds, Keith is losing his balance and slipping against the hard surface of the floor, a surprised yelp escaping out of his throat.

Lance twirls the hose between his index finger. He makes a point of blowing on the nozzle like it’s the barrel of a pistol, letting his lips kick up into a razor-sharp grin when he takes in the expression on Keith’s face. It kind of reminds him of a wounded kitten.

“Hey, Lance?” Keith says from his place on the floor.

“Yeah?”

“Do friends –“ Keith’s ankle shoots out – “do this?”

Just like that, Lance’s legs are swept right out from beneath him via Keith’s clunky go-go boots, arms uselessly flailing in midair for a fraction of a second before the hose slips out of his fingers. He lands with a graceful little _oomph_ just as the sound of laughter reaches his ears.

Once the initial surprise of the fall wears off, he waggles his middle finger in the general vicinity of Keith’s face and says a few choice curses, but he can’t help but laugh along, too. There’s something about hearing Keith’s quiet, unstrained laughter that makes Lance’s belly spread with warmth, like he’s just swallowed down a spoonful of melted honey. It’s such an open and trustworthy sound – completely at odds with Keith’s usual snorts of dismissal, or even his small huffs of laughter while being tickled. Hearing it makes him wonder why he ever wanted to egg Keith on just to get a rise out of him when could've been making him laugh this whole time. 

Perhaps this is the kind of vulnerability that he never got from Keith at the Garrison while trying to befriend him, and Lance supposes maybe, just maybe, they  _have_ come far enough in the last two years to become friends after all.

He doesn’t pause to consider what he’s going to do next. He rolls over the stone floor until he’s facing Keith, reaches out, and swipes his thumb across Keith’s goo-covered cheek in one go. At his touch, the ends of Keith’s mouth curl into a confused and unsure half-smile. A crease that’s becoming all-too familiar forms between his brows.

This close up, Lance can see himself reflected in Keith’s eyes, can feel them exchanging oxygen, chests rising and falling in sync.

It’s strange, he thinks, that with just a careful shift of his torso and a slight tilt of Keith’s head, they could almost be nose to nose. Not that they would, of course. But if they wanted to.

He wipes the thought out of his mind before he has time to analyze it any further.

Blinking hard, he shoots Keith a Colgate-commercial worthy smile and brings his finger to his own lips. Even though the goo has a semi-plain, semi-bittersweet taste and an overall soppy texture, he still swallows it down, giving a slight hum of ill-disguised displeasure once he’s done.

He lifts both hands and gives Keith two dorky thumbs up. “I guess friends do this too, yeah?”

And as another small, breathless laugh escapes past Keith’s lips, Lance thinks, _oh._

He thinks that, when Keith laughs, magic happens.

 

>>>

 

“What made you want to explore space?”

They’re on the observation deck, silently looking out at the spray of milky stars floating across a field of deep blues and purples. It’s been several weeks since they’ve had a chance to exchange more than just a sentence or two; between stakeouts, separate missions, and liberating intergalactic species, taking a breather in the castle was pretty much impossible.

Keith glances sideways at Lance, a brow cocked in thoughtful consideration at the question. His jacket is slung over one shoulder, and he starts to fiddle with the cuffs as he drags his gaze back to the cluster of foreign constellations.

Lance reclines on his elbows and waits for Keith’s reply. By now, he’s beginning to understand that Keith, when he’s not busy being a hot-head, likes to piece his thoughts together in silence before speaking. It’s the opposite of what Lance would do – he runs his mouth a mile a minute as if he’s on autopilot. There’s always _so_ much to say but not enough time for his brain to operate as fast as his mouth.

He remembers a time when he would come home from school and ramble on about his day for minutes on end, barely stopping to heave a breath, and his mom would laugh and sweep a kiss across his forehead before telling him that he was babbling again. Not that she minded, really. She’s probably the only one who can keep up with his constant stream of chatter, no matter how many sub-topics he ends up interchanging.

At the memory, a small smile forms on Lance’s lips. He leans forward to wrap his arms around his legs before pressing his cheek against the curve of his knee. Next to him, Keith stops picking at his jacket sleeves and finally looks away from the window.

“I think earth was too suffocating,” he says. His voice is quiet.

“Suffocating?” Lance asks, squinting down at the floor. He can imagine his home planet to be many things, but none of them would be something he’d describe as _suffocating_.

“I was bounced around from one foster home to the next. I hated it. There were – well, there were too many people with the wrong kind of expectations. At least at the Garrison, I felt like I was actually learning about something that I wanted in life.”

“Until you got booted.”

Keith blows out a breath that flops his bangs against his forehead. “Until I got booted. But that didn’t make me want to go to space any less.”

Lance glances at him. Keith looks away, looking slightly embarrassed.

“I don’t know. There’s just something about space, the unknown, that made me want to be a pilot so bad. I wanted to feel the same kind of rush I got when I rode my motorcycle. Except... I wanted to feel it anywhere but on earth.”

To some extent, Lance can understand that kind of longing more than anything. The first time his mom took him out onto the roof to let him use a telescope, his world had tilted on its axis. That preliminary glimpse of space, an endless velvet of black lit up by thousands of silver stars, had lit a deep and hungry flame in his belly. It sent a rush of awe and excitement through him, like little spikes of electricity going off in his bloodstream.

That night, as he lay in bed with his stuffed shark – Mr. Bubbles – crushed tight against his chest, he pretended that stars were things that could be lured to earth.

But despite his fascination with the galaxies spread out before him, Lance understands that now, if given the chance, he would return to earth in a heartbeat. If given a way to end the intergalactic war he’s been forced to become so tangled up in, he wouldn’t hesitate. It’s a kind of desperate, persistent longing that sits in his chest cavity, day after day, like some hollow semblance of hope. He wonders how long it’ll be before it’s tapped out for good.  

Then there’s Keith, who he isn’t so sure about. For one thing, the guy isn’t even completely human. It makes sense that he feels at ease out here in space, what with part of his DNA being Galra and all.

It makes him feel strangely unhinged. Even if their circumstances are completely up to par with Keith’s idea of a grand time, he’s got his suspicions about the hot-tempered paladin being more than just reluctant to return to earth. And why _would_ he want to return? He’s got no father to tie him back to earth. His living arrangements consisted of a desert shack out in the middle of who-fucking-knows-where. He, unfortunately, has nothing to lose by running around from one interplanetary mission to the next.

Lance supposes that, in a way, space gives Keith the kind of freedom that can never be offered to him on earth.

He opens his mouth to rattle off something meaningful, but then stops short. He doesn’t want  to make things awkward. Or put a wet blanket on the considerably heavy mood any further.

So, channeling his usual self, he shrugs and leans back, letting a lazy grin stretch across his face. “You know, that was kind of deep. I wasn’t expecting it. Makes what I have to say sound lame in comparison.”

Keith runs his fingers along the ends of his hair in an almost unconscious gesture before he angles his body towards Lance, looking curious. The sheer expectancy in his attention throws Lance a bit off balance.

“Well,” he says, struggling to recollect himself. “The thought of space and an endless of array of star systems to explore is great and all, but what _really_ got me interested are the black holes.”

"Black holes."

"Yep."

“Why am I not surprised? This totally fits.”

“Totally fits what?”

Keith gestures vaguely. “This mental notion I have of you. Black holes? It’s just – well – so undeniably _your_ type of thing. A Lance thing.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Lance doesn’t know why he sounds so pleased at the thought of Keith having any of kind mental impression of him besides _exuberant_  and _talkative_. “But, anyway. The thing about black holes is that if you were to travel inside of them, you would be stretched like a noodle. A goddamn noodle, Keith. _Linguine._  And you know what they call it?”

Even though he probably knows the answer, Keith still humors him by lifting a thick brow.

“Spaghettification!” Lance throws his hands up into the air dramatically, like his mind has just been blown to pieces. “And, I mean, now that we know wormholes exist and we can pop right into different pockets of the universe like no one’s business, black holes just seem mainstream, but still. Everything about the theory of quantum gravity – about not even light being able escape that much force? That’s so _trippy_.”

When he looks over, he catches Keith trying to hide a smile behind the upturned collar of his jacket. It cuts off Lance’s train of thought and sends it veering in a totally different direction.

He appraises the gentle curve of those lips in thoughtful silence. So far, he’s cataloged a wide range of Keith’s smiles, safely filing them away at the back of his mind in the same way a kid would stow away their wrapped candies or shiny marbles. There’s Keith with the sardonic, too-cocky smile right before he’s about to ninja-splice his opponent. There’s Keith with the absent-minded smile, just barely parenthesizing the corners of his lips. There’s Keith with the sharp grin when he’s excited or passionate about something, revealing just the barest flash of his canines. Then there’s Keith with the soft smile, lips upturned with the kind of fondness that Lance has never thought him capable of.

There are a lot of Keith Smile’s Lance has stashed away, apparently.

Point is, he doesn’t think he’s noticed this one before. It’s a mixture of amusement and something else too, something a bit more soft-edged and newer. _Affection_ , his brain pushes at him hopefully, to which he politely tells his brain to fuck off and find someone else’s thoughts to chew at.

He desperately wants to ask what kind of mental impression Keith has of him right now, at this exact moment. He wants to ask a myriad of other things, too, things that suddenly seem so much easier to get out in the undisturbed silence of the observatory.

But then Shiro enters the room, an admonishment already scraping off the tip of his tongue, and the moment around Lance crumbles.

 

>>>

 

There’s a strangely melancholic taste in the air tonight.

Keith and the rest of the team are standing in the middle of a crumbling planet, stock-still in thick, penetrating silence. Dust and debris floats down from the red-streaked sky, and a hollow, droning sound permeates the air. The scent of something burning scratches at Keith’s nose as he watches Shiro and Coran loading the lone survivors onto one of their cargo ships.

Lance, with soot and ashes streaking down his face like war paint, is breathing hard. So hard, his knees buckle and collapse to the ground. His armour protests with a weak whine, leg braces creaking against the impact. Hair, matted with sweat and a day’s worth of grime, curls over the tips of his ears. Hands fist into the damp soil as a low growl of frustration slips past his lips.

“Lance,” Hunk says quietly, but then stops short at the look on his best friend’s face.

“No,” Lance bites out, sounding like he’s physically refraining himself from dry-heaving onto the ground. “No, I refuse to accept this.”

Keith, who’s standing the closest to him, can only stare down. A gaping flare of helplessness starts to snake through his stomach. He wants to find the right words, anything, to comfort Lance. But he’s never been good with words. He doesn’t possess the innate ability to connect and communicate with people the way Lance can. His default trait is _doing,_ not thinking.

So that’s exactly what he does. He lets his knees sink into the damp soil, touching down next to a boy with a heart as soft and open as a bruise. Silently, he wraps his arms around Lance, allowing him to drop his head onto his shoulder. For a few moments, Lance doesn’t do anything – just remains completely still, as if frozen in a block of ice.

Then, he lets a shudder wrack through his body and presses in closer to Keith’s embrace.

“I could’ve saved them,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse and scratchy, as if he’s trying to swallow down clumps of dry cereal down his throat. Something about it makes Keith’s chest seize up.  His mind empties of everything but the hollow gust of wind against their faces and how vulnerable Lance looks in this fraction of a heartbeat, like one movement can break him open.

“Stop it. You survived. Your quick thinking got at least half of these hostages out. That counts for something, right?”

“But not all of _them_ survived, Keith. Most of them were barely conscious. Some of them were literal _children_. What’s the point of being a part of a glorified, ass-conquering robot who saves the universe if you can’t – can’t – “ Lance cuts off with a sharp inhale. Another shudder runs through him. This time, Keith can hear the unmistakable sound of Lance’s breath hitching, as if he’s on the verge of breaking into tears.

Keith leans in to tighten his grip on Lance, almost like he’s shielding him. From what, he isn’t quite sure. All he knows is that he doesn't want something in Lance to shake loose. He lets himself count to thirty before he draws back and presses his thumbs against the sides of Lance’s head, forcing him to tilt it up.

”Hey, hey. Look at me. I’m not saying that what happened wasn’t shitty. But just because you couldn’t save everyone doesn’t mean you’re any less of a –“

“– A what?” Lance’s eyes flash dangerously.

“A paladin.”

The droning sound in the air fizzles out, then slowly pops back in.

“Some paladin I am, then,” Lance says, voice brittle. There’s laughter somewhere in there, too, more self-deprecating than anything else Keith has heard from him. “You know, it feels like the more lives we try to save along the way, the more we keep losing.”

“Lance,” Keith says, then cuts himself off, because he doesn’t know what he wants to add next. He doesn’t trust himself enough to say anything more, too afraid he’ll accidentally let the wrong thing slip out and send Lance into another panic-induced spiral.

It occurs to him that he’s never had to comfort Lance in the kind of way Lance has with him – mainly when Shiro disappeared and left Keith with a role far too big for him to fill in alone. Lance had put aside whatever spite he had for Keith and kept him level-headed through pretty much the entire span of his role as leader.

 _It would take an awfully big heart and clear mind-set for someone to do that,_ Keith thinks, frowning.

He steels a breath to compose himself. He ducks his head a bit further so that the others can’t listen. They’re at eye level now. Lance’s usual clear-eyed gaze is replaced with a wild kind of frenzy, the deep blue of his irises taking on a duller, ashen shade. Keith lets his thumb trace down the length of Lance’s jaw while he tucks the index finger of his other hand under Lance’s chin.

“I know the death toll lately hasn’t been the best,” he says, voice quiet. “But think about the big picture here for a moment. We’re giving lives that we _do_ save a second chance at living a normal life. We’re returning a basic right that Zarkon has taken away from them, and even though we can’t give it to every single life-form, the fact that we can give even a fraction of each planet’s population another second chance means that it’s a step closer to overthrowing the rest of this crusty, fascist empire.”

At the last bit, a small smile curls the ends of Lance’s mouth. It makes a dimples push out against the corner of his mouth, just the tiniest bit.

“Crusty empire, huh?”

“Yeah. Just a matter of time, if we play our cards right,” Keith replies, and he can’t keep the smile out of his voice.

Lance watches Keith for several beats of silence. Normally, his face is like an open book, pages idly spread out for the taking, but right now, Keith honestly can’t tell what he’s thinking of. 

“Okay,” Lance breathes out. The grey look on his face finally breaks, or at least clears away enough for his usual buoyancy to bounce back. “I think – I think I’m okay now.”

“Really?”

“No. You’re really bad at giving pep talks. Like, almost as bad as the time you told me to leave the math to Pidge.”

Keith rolls his eyes, trying not to look stung. “What can I say? Inspirational speeches just aren’t my forte.”

Lance smiles widely. “The effort was cute, though, not gonna lie.” His expression softens again, the corner of his lip slipping under his teeth as he looks back into Keith’s eyes. “But thank you. I do feel a bit better.”

“Oh. Uh – yeah. I just – yeah. You’re welcome.”

He lets Lance stay in his arms for little while longer after that, head pillowed against his chest, ruffled hair brushing alongside his jaw. They don’t bring any of it up the next day, or the day after, or ever. Instead, they choose to dance around the subject and the unnamed thing unfurling between them.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

“This is a catastrophe!” Lance exclaims as he shoves his way into the control room and claims the nearest chair, draping himself over the backrest and letting his long limbs go loose.

“Did your extra bubbly soap run out again?” Pidge asks dryly. She’s wrenching the covering plate off a failed setup with her bare hands while Matt hovers over her shoulder, warily eyeing the mass of wires that are beginning to spark and fizz under her touch. Keith isn’t sure what they’re doing, exactly, no matter how hard he’s tried to keep up with the sibling-duo’s techno babble. He eventually just settled on being a silent observer.

“Not even close, but since you brought it up, I’m going to insist that we try and restock soon.” Lance swivels around and dangles his legs over one of the armrests. “The problem, the dilemma, the _catastrophe_ , is my love life.”

“You have a love life?” Matt asks, looking confused. “Wait, are you talking about Allura?”

Keith needs to physically restrain himself from looking at Lance’s face.

“Well, I mean – no. I’m sure she writes rhyming ballads about my dreamy eyes in her diary from time to time, but I’m talking more about my love life in general. Or, well, _lack_ thereof.”

Keith tries to be as inconspicuous as possible with his sigh of relief.

“Go on,” Pidge prods. She gives her setup a good smack on the rear. “I wanna hear this.”

“Well, it’s come to my attention that making it back to earth anytime soon isn’t possible. Which means that I’ll have to be a part of this intergalactic war for a little while longer, most likely until I’m old and ripe with a pectoris disease or some shit like that.” Lance stops swinging his legs. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I won’t be able to find love on earth like I imagined. Or here, for that matter. Turns out that getting rejected by even the alien species is abysmal.”

Pidge, with a concerned frown, glances over at Lance.

Lance meets her gaze and shrugs, looking a tad bit shy. “Depressing, I know. But it’s not _my_ fault I’m such a hopeless romantic. To say I don’t have great luck in the ‘ _getting someone to stay interested in me beyond flirting’_ department is like saying Ryan Seacrest doesn’t have great luck in the height department: total understatement!”

Keith finally looks at Lance now. “And this matters because…?”

“It _matters_ because I’ve never been – cue sad music – in love before. And no one has ever been – cue sadder music – in love with _me._ ”

 _Not that you’re aware of,_  Keith corrects in his mind as he drags his gaze back to Pidge’s mass of wires and plugs. He pretends to be completely transfixed by them. But Pidge, being the ever-perceptive creature that she is, sends him an appraising, sidelong glance that lasts longer than necessary. She’s been giving him a lot of those recently. It flicks between him and Lance several times before she faces the latter again.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about your love life, Lance. I’m willing to bet that someone up your alley is right around the corner. A really, really near corner.” With this, she lets out a grunt and rips two tangled wires apart, but not before shooting Keith an innocent bat of her lashes.

In that moment, Keith wishes an asteroid could pummel through the castleship and knock him straight out of orbit.

Lance frowns at Pidge’s veiled remark. “Really? You think so?”

“Trust me,” Pidge says, but her expression already looks like she’s lost interest in the conversation. She tugs on her brother’s arm. “C’mon, Matt. I need to get a few more items from my room.”

“Why do I have to –“

“You didn’t get all these muscles from working with the rebels for nothing. You’re my designated carrier, duh.” She pauses to jut a finger at Lance and Keith, then to the carefully arranged order of wires. “Keep an eye on these wires for me. Make sure they don’t snap out of place and come into contact with each other.”

Lance blinks. “What happens if they come into contact?”

“Meh. The castle ship will probably self-destruct.”

With that, Pidge drags Matt out of the room without another word, leaving Keith completely and hopelessly alone with Lance.

“She’s just messing with me, right?” Lance asks after a too long silence. He swings his legs off the armrest and starts stretching them out as far as he can, making the chair creak and rock backward.

Keith shrugs. He’s not sure if Lance is talking about Pidge’s offhand remark about his love life or about the potentially self-destructible mess of wires in their midst.

His wandering attention snags onto Lance again before he can help himself, mostly for lack of anything more interesting than the explosive device to focus on. He can’t help but think that, despite his tattered, olive-green jacket and threadbare jeans, Lance doesn’t look anything less than annoyingly perfect.

The thrumming sensation that’s been building up in his chest these past few months expands, and he desperately wants to claw at it – pick it out, bit by bit, with the edge of his knife.

As unsuccessful as it’s beginning to seem, he’s tried to tamper it down before. He’s tried to distance his focus on Lance by wheeling onto his other problems, like Shiro’s disturbingly grating attitude or his mother’s reappearance, or even his endless supply of anger at the universe in general. But thinking about all of that, accompanied by the knowledge that his premature death is inevitable, only creates a penetrating numbness inside of his mind.

Thinking about Lance, on the other hand, is something entirely different. Keith isn’t sure how to explain it. He’s never given much thought to sentimental attachments or relationships. In his experience, caring about that stuff has always seemed outside of his limits, too far-fetched of a concept. A type of warmth he has no idea how to even approach in the first place. It’s why he had decided a long time ago that there are certain things in life – quite a lot of things – that people as strange and wild as him don’t get to have.

Except, when he looks at Lance, a boy who is both shameless and soft, open-hearted and ambitious, a feeling like burrowing under a warm, heavy quilt in the winter spreads through him. It makes him wonder how Lance can remember to be all those things at once, how there is any space left inside of him to remain so bright and optimistic even while fighting the tyrannical rule of an evil empire.

Honestly, the only way Keith can describe the thrumming in his chest is that it’s not unlike a safety quilt warding off the cold. When he’s angry and reckless and wants to inflict a lot more damage than he’s worth, he lets his focus redirect onto warm, glittering blue eyes and a boyish smile that ends in a set of dimples. He reaches into the closet at the back of his mind, tugs out his patchwork of carefully woven feelings, and wraps it around him to shield the chill of his muddled thoughts, letting it mould against him so that it fills his spaces and gaps.

He often needs to stop himself from wearing it any longer than he needs to, because while it helps him find some semblance of stability, it never leaves without sending him into a queasy mix of dread and longing, either.

It feels as if the more he nurses these feelings, curiously turning them around in his mind the same way one would turn a Rubik’s cube, the more they seem to overflow, like pouring water from a tap that’s been left on for too long. He’s afraid that one day, if he continues nurturing whatever it is that he’s come to think of Lance as, it’ll spill everywhere, out into the open for all to see.

But as he studies Lance – the sharp line of his jaw, the curious tilt of his head, the deep brown of his hair – he reaches a conclusion.

He doesn’t need to let any of his personal feelings spill. Not only are they inconvenient, but they don’t exactly matter in the grand scheme of things. He can’t ruin his friendship with Lance – which somehow still feels like a wriggling, newborn thing – or the team’s meticulously put-together dynamic in favor of chasing something that he isn’t even sure can be returned.

He is part-boy, part-soldier, and part-pilot. It shouldn’t feel like he has any room for much more. Specifically Lance, who’s the kind of person that can easily fill anyone up to the brim. And If there’s one thing Keith has preserved from his time with the Blades, it’s that individual issues – especially the distracting kind – need to end up on the back burner.

Which is why, as Lance cracks a terrible joke about something Keith hasn’t quite caught onto yet, he bunches the quilt into a careless heap, gives it the metaphorical finger, and plunges it deep inside the catacombs of his closet. This time, it lays sealed beneath layers of other things strewn about, far enough where it can’t be reached easily.  

 

>>>

 

Keith wonders how, exactly, he and Lance are the only ones who ever seem to end up in these situations.

“Would you just stay still for a second?” Lance says, exasperated. He wipes down the side of Keith’s face with a piece of cloth he dredged up from some place Keith doesn’t really care much about knowing.

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” he insists, mouth tasting faintly of copper as he runs his tongue along the back of his teeth. His tone holds more bite than necessary, which only serves to darken Lance’s already dampened mood.

“Sure, yeah. My mistake. Obviously, you can sustain an excellent condition of health after nearly getting a _hole_ blown through your skull.” Lance leans in close to get a better view of Keith’s head injury. “Would it kill you to stop struggling?”

“It just might.”

“Don’t do this right now. You can’t seriously be mad at me.”

“ _Try me_ . We could’ve captured those mercs and their cruiser by now if you hadn’t made that dumb detour.” Even as he’s saying this, Keith feels a woozy, lightheartedness taking form in his mind. At first, he thinks it’s because Lance’s fingertips are running all over the sides of his face, their warmth – even through the thick layer of gloves – leaving searing imprints against his grime-covered skin. But then he notices just how much blood is soaking the cloth, and he thinks, _fuck._

He knows he’s being a jerk. If Lance hadn’t gotten him out of the way in time, Keith would’ve received more than a bleeding head injury and a clocked jaw to worry about. But they’ve been butting heads with each other since the start of their mission, uselessly arguing over which route to take, and the fire of it hasn’t left Keith. The need to focus on something that isn’t stomach-churning red is so strong it seems to radiate off him in palpable, rippling waves.

“It wasn’t worth it,” he continues, unrelenting. “Now not only is the mission compromised, but Allura is going to hand our asses back to us for failing to do the easiest task he’s given us all week.”

In the heavy silence that follows, both level a glare at each other.

Lance breaks the quiet with a sharp bark of laughter. “Buddy, I risked my life for you. Don’t disrespect the risks I take by claiming you aren’t worth it.”

Keith draws back from Lance’s fingers and blinks up at him, startled. He feels a notch of uncertainty form in the pit of his stomach under the abrupt force of that blue-eyed stare. It renders him into a fumbling mess, trying to find the right words to counter back with. “I – “

“Just a simple thank you would be enough,” Lance interrupts. “We’re past that whole ‘being testy with each other’ shit. I didn’t go through two weeks of following your questionable leadership skills and having to pull you back from diving headfirst off every cliff just to end up back to square one.” Here, he pauses to jab a thumb into Keith’s chest plate. “We’ve gotten better at listening to each other. Good team and all, remember?”

“I – guess you’re right.” Keith lets out an exhale. “But that doesn’t mean – “

Whatever he’s about to say is cut off by the unmistakable sound of a plasma gun being fired up several yards away. Both boys share a wide-eyed look, and Lance peers over the outcropping of rocks that they’ve tucked themselves behind.

“Looks like those Galra mercs are sending more of their friends our way to throw us off their trail. Numbers don’t seem too bad, but – ah, _quiznak_ , I think they’ve gotten a hold of one of those ion cannons. How the hell did they get that out here?” he shakes his head. “Never mind. We could probably call for Red right now, but…”

“He’s already taken the brunt of heavy artillery this week,” Keith finishes. “Another round of ionized plasma will probably jeopardize some of his external functions. Gotta figure something else out.”

Lance nods, face rearranging into a dead-serious expression. “We need to find another way to get past these mercs and into Red without being spotted. You’re going to need medical attention, too. Stat. Any suggestions?”

Keith opens his mouth.

“Anything that _doesn’t_ include squeezing the trigger out in the open and making a hard-ass run for it with no actual plan?”

Keith closes his mouth.

Lance smirks. “Thought so.”

Even through the throbbing pain at his temple, Keith still finds the energy to roll his eyes skyward. He lets Lance pull him into a crouch, one hand resting on his elbow and the other against the towering rocks next to him. The good thing about this planet’s terrain is that, while it’s barren and plain of any permanent life forms, most of its surface is covered in colossal chunks of glossy, jet-black rock. Ugly as they may be, they’ve so far proven to be useful for cover.

“They know we’re here somewhere, but not exactly where,” Keith says slowly, taking in the sporadic location of the rocks around them. “Lance, do you remember that drill Coran made us do last month?”

Immediately, Lance’s eyes light up. “ _Ooh,_  ricocheting the ammo so that the targets don’t know our location. These rocks are perfect for that!”

“Think you can do it?”

At Lance’s offended expression, Keith reaches out and gently flicks him on the nose as he says, “I’m only kidding.”

“You better be,” Lance says with a dainty lift of his chin. The movement causes Keith’s finger to slip down and rest directly between the space where Lance’s mouth parts. He’s about to retract it, but Lance – that _asshole_ – flashes a lightning quick grin and actually _bites_ down against the tip of his gloved finger. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like they aren’t in the middle of a stupid escape attempt.

Keith snatches his hand back, his face an expression that’s torn between half-amused, half-exasperated. Despite how hard he tries to fight off the smile, his traitorous lips still tug upwards.  “You’re ridiculous.”

“I rest between the ridiculous and the sublime, buddy. It’s an art.”

Lance tugs on his helmet before gently doing the same for Keith, batting his hand away when he makes a mild noise of protest.

Keith spends the next few moments watching Lance sling his rifle onto his shoulder, but his mind is on the blood covering the side of his head. He’s not entirely sure, but judging by the amount of red drenching the now discarded cloth, a concussion isn’t far out of the realm of possibility. He’s no stranger to head injuries – he’s had his fair share of them on reconnaissance missions with Kolivan and the rest of the Blade members. But losing consciousness and forcing Lance to carry his dead weight in the middle of a crossfire isn’t exactly the way he wants things to go down.

“Count of three,” Lance says. “I’m going to release fire on those inner circles of rock. They’ll be too distracted trying to pinpoint the backfire’s location to notice us slipping around the outer circle. But we gotta be quick.”

Keith grunts in lieu of a reply, and when Lance helps him up, forcing them both to keep their heads low in the process, he feels a wave of dizziness threatening to buckle his knees. The moments that follow pass by so fast they’re almost a blur. He hears Lance count to three under his breath. He hears the rifle humming to life and releasing at rapid-fire speed, the steady _crack, crack, crack_ of each blast leaving a hollow-like ringing in his ears. He feels Lance whirling him around and seizing his hand, threading their fingers together like a single afterthought hasn’t been given to the gesture.

“Snap out of it, Keith. We’re hitting the ground at a hard run. Think you can keep up?”

That gets Keith’s attention. He’s not even finished his retort before they’re already sprinting, the jagged rocks around them melting into nothing but inky-black blurs. Sound and touch begin to trickle in and out from Keith’s senses.

They eventually pause so that Lance can determine which path to cut through next, and Keith takes this as his opportunity for a quick breather. Beneath his helmet, his bangs are slick with sweat and blood, sticking against his forehead. It’s suffocating and he doesn’t think he can take it any longer, so he pulls the stupid thing off and lets the dry breeze tickle his ears.

Lance’s gaze flicks over to him. His eyes are still blazing with the rush of excitement from a battle, somehow making the blue of his irises even more vivid and bright. Like liquified summer skies, Keith thinks absently, then snorts to himself.

He decides that he likes this version of Lance, too, if not more. Face stained with sweat, jaw set in determination, and an expression that reads ' _come at me motherfuckers’_ in the cheeky and playful kind of way that only a boy as unwittingly charming as Lance can pull off. 

Keith is observant when he wants to be, which is generally only when he’s in the midst of combat. He's trained himself to tune out distractions. But Lance? Lance is the kind of person whose entire demeanor just _begs_ to be observed. He's the kind of distraction that feels so much more destructive to Keith's heart than he wants to admit. The simple, restless way his too-long arms wave around when he’s talking. The way his shoulders roll when he’s annoyed or the endearing way he never fails to toe his sneakers off a little too fast. The way his smile always glints, first in his eyes before curving the corner of his mouth. It catches Keith off-guard, being able to glimpse these alternative versions of Lance and yet never quite feeling like he’s seen all of him yet. 

Maybe Lance isn’t just someone that demands to be observed. Maybe, to people like Keith, who have fallen a little too hard and a little too painfully, Lance is —

“See something you like?”

Keith’s heart retracts. He lets his gaze fall down to the curve of Lance’s lips, just for a single heartbeat, before he lets it fall away completely, choosing instead to focus on his dirt-caked knees.

He says, “No. Your face isn’t really that interesting.”

To his surpirse, Lance huffs out a small laugh.

“Try not to let too many drops of blood fall to the ground,” he says after another intake of breath. He inclines his head towards Keith’s head. “You could be leaving an easy trail.”

“Right, ‘cause I’m bleeding all over the place for shits and giggles.”

“Ugh, _Keith_ _._ Please don’t joke and bleed at the same time.”

Keith spits out a mouthful of copper-tinged saliva before grabbing hold of Lance’s palm again. “Please don’t tell me what to do.”

Without another glance backward, they’re off again, feet thudding heavily against the unforgivably hard ground. Keith’s hair flies back against the whoosh of air, and he belatedly realizes he should’ve kept his helmet on, because now his eyes are stinging and he can’t see shit.

He doesn’t know if he’s imagining it or if it’s some crazy side effect of his head injury, but he swears he can feel Lance’s fingers lacing through his once more, followed by a hard, reassuring squeeze that would’ve made Keith react a lot differently in different circumstances.

His head is pounding. His vision is becoming hazy, and it feels like he’s going to keel over at any moment. But when he spares a sideway glance at the blue-armoured boy next to him, he doesn’t feel scared. Or maybe scared isn’t exactly the right word. More like worried. He’s not _worried_ about bleeding out or getting struck down. Perhaps it’s because he’s truly an idiot, or maybe it’s the adrenaline pumping like jet fuel through his veins, but he thinks that if there’s anyone he’d choose to run away from danger with, scraped and bloodied and bruised like hell, it would have to be Lance.

 

>>>

 

“If you're going to knock down my suggestion, you'd better have a good replacement.”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I _do_ have a better plan.”

“Lance, for the last time, we’ve already vetoed it. I’m only being rational here, which is clearly a quality you lack –“

“Oh, that’s rich coming from someone whose primary tactic is –“

“Hey, wing nuts!” Pidge’s voice rings out between them. “Cool it, will you? We’re in the middle of something here, if you haven’t noticed.”

Keith doesn’t tear his attention away from Lance. Their gazes strike like flint and steel. If possible, Lance’s glare becomes even more intense, and in that moment Keith suddenly feels like they’re gearing up for a race in their lions.

Hunk stifles a sigh from behind. “Guys, seriously. What’s been up with you two this past week? I’m starting to wonder if we’ve wormholed our way back to our first days in space.”

“Ask Keith,” Lance says with a jut of his chin. There’s just the slightest hint of mockery in his tone, and something unnameable hardens in Keith’s gut as he watches Lance plant a firm hand on his hip and stomp away from the team’s little huddle.

It takes all his willpower to stop himself from going after Lance just to fling back a retort. He takes a breath. _Patience yields focus_. Adding another layer of tension in the middle of their subterranean operation isn’t what’s needed right now. He presses his lips into a tight line and curls his fingers around the hilt of his sword, following Hunk and Pidge behind an old scrap of spaceship metal. It’s dark and the only source of light are the synchronized pulses of blue coming from the crystals above them, but Keith can clearly make out the scowl on Lance’s face and the obvious tension of his shoulders, like he’s consciously making the decision to be as stubborn as he can by straying afar.

Keith doesn’t know what to do with this kind of change. He doesn’t know what to do with the sudden 180 degree turn that Lance’s attitude has taken. It’s exhausting trying to pinpoint exactly why he and Lance started to become less of a crime-fighting duo and more of two snarling wolves picking petty fights. But he does know that whatever _this_ is, whatever they’ve lapsed into – it runs deeper than the urge to push one another’s buttons just to get a satisfied rise out of it.   

The week after his duo mission with Lance had gone by in a blur, and as far as he’s concerned, nothing notable happened apart from another run in with Acxa and her two other comrades. He has, however, become acutely aware of the shift in his and Lance’s interactions. At first, it was easy enough to ignore, and Keith chalked it up to just simple awkwardness regarding their sudden touchiness with each other – like, say, holding hands and playfully bumping shoulders and hips. But then – well. Then things just snowballed from there.

Things evolved from awkward to uncomfortable.  It prompted an unspoken breach to crack open between them. It wasn't the kind of thing that neither one could quite ignore, really. And then, because they’re Keith and Lance, they lapsed into their old selves, bickering and getting under each other’s skin. Because it’s them. Always skirting around the edge of an active volcano, just a misstep away from spilling magma like blood from an unclosed wound.

No amount of bonding moments, affectionate teasing, and a hidden exchange of shy smiles can stop them from boiling down anything into an argument.

As the ground rumbles beneath his feet, scattering loose pieces of crystals from above, Keith tells himself that it’ll all blow over soon. They’re friends. Friends bicker and hold hands when they’re running away from danger all the time.

Their target finally emerges from one of the tunnels. Its scabrous head swings side to side and sends chunks of crystals flying everywhere. Its giant maw blows out a huff of air so big that it nearly makes Keith’s hair stand on end, even from this distance. Hunk yells for Lance to get back and threatens to serve him unseasoned food goo for the rest of his life, to which Lance promptly responds with an annoyed roll of his shoulders. He eventually relents and joins their huddle again, albeit huffily.

“It’s much bigger than I thought it would be,” Pidge observes, mouth twisting into a frown.

Hunk adjusts his visor. “You guys think we should lure it onto the surface instead? Underground fights always leave me at a disadvantage, just saying.”

“Yeah, as much I would _love_ to destroy corpse-breath over there, i don’t think we have much of a chance in here,” Lance says.  “It’s the size of freaking Wal-Mart.”

Keith snorts. “Corpse-breath?”

“Yeah, yeah. I get a little poetic sometimes.” Lance gives a disdainful sniff. He doesn’t lift his gaze from the glint of his rifle. “I think it’s just the atmosphere.”

As the mission continues, Keith would like to say that he hones in on the task at hand completely – slashing, kicking, and thrusting all of his energy into the fight. Exchanging pointers with Hunk and Pidge through the intercoms. Creating a slight incision on the creature’s tail to extract its thick, sap-like venom in the tiny vials they’d all been instructed to bring along.

But Keith’s always been susceptible to Lance’s jabs, never able to stop himself from giving in to the push-and-pull of each rebuttal. It’s like some sort of Lance-automated response – Lance shoots a retort, Keith parries back with twice as much venom.

“Are you serious? I had that fucking shot, Keith. Stop hauling ass on my side of the fight.”

“Would you just calm down? It was in my range –“

“I’ll calm down when you tell your ego to go take a hike!”

“ _My_ _ego_? I’m not the one being a pissbaby here. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your ridiculous need for attention. We’ve been over this.”

Lance ducks just in time to avoid the swing of the creature’s tail. “It should go without saying that stealing someone’s blow is bad form!”

“Are we really talking about form right now? _Here?_ I’m just trying to protect you!”

“You always have to go out and be all damn heroic, huh?” There’s knife-sharp edge to Lance’s voice. “Look at me! I’m Keith, aviation deity and the most exceptional soldier in this entire goddamn universe! I don’t need to listen to anyone, least of all Lance, the self-absorbed, loud-mouthed seventh wheel! Or maybe ninth now, with Lotor and Matt in the equation.”

“I’ve never said anything like that, and you know it.”

“Please, it doesn’t need to be said.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Keith’s patience finally snaps as he wheels onto Lance, and he doesn’t miss the grim satisfaction curling its way around the edges of Lance’s mouth.

 _What are you talking about?_ Keith wants to yell. There’s a strange, jarring mixture of confusion and restlessness sprouting inside of him, and a part of him wants to stamp it down so he can march over to Lance and shake him. Shake him and tell him that he isn’t some seventh or ninth or _any_ kind of wheel.

But another part of him, the one that’s still too diffused and sad to allow himself to love Lance, rears its ugly head up.

In a way, it’s almost a relief. Lance instigating another fight with him feels like he’s back on solid ground. It feels good and it’s _freeing_ and compared to the hopeless flutters in his chest, this is something familiar. Something controllable, a game he and Lance are good at and, most of all, a game that distracts him from his mess of feelings.

He isn’t even sure what the argument turns into, because all the words blur together and everything that’s exchanged between battling the creature and ducking beneath its tail becomes an incomprensible blob that barely registers in his mind.

All he knows is that arguing with Lance is like being one of two ballet dancers in a gunfight. They circle each other with elegance, feigning and pirouetting and setting up the fatal shot. Lance is usually the one to fire it point-blank to Keith’s chest. Keith accepts his wounds with the grace of a seasoned soldier, and the pseudo dance resumes.

It doesn't end well.

 

>>>

 

“–And I don’t see why he just won’t _admit_ that his stupid mullet is so outdated and completely _stupid_! Like, that thing should be a prehistoric relic with the way it’s been groomed. Hunk speculated that it’s really soft – like the promises in magazines – but that’s just crazy talk. I mean, sure, it’s shiny, but that could just be sweat, you know? He’s always sweating.”

Allura takes a dainty sip of her milkshake before giving a small hum of acknowledgement. She swishes the contents of her cup around thoughtfully, dazzling blue eyes fixated on Lance with the kind of intensity that makes him fidget in his seat and knot his fingers together.

“Lance,” she says, in that lilting accent that makes his name sound more like _Lonce._ “I do not understand why you’re so distressed over this fight with Keith. You two have become close friends and get into little squabbles all the time. Why is this any different?”

“I’m not distressed,” Lance says huffily. “And I don’t know. This doesn’t really feel little. Every time I look at Keith now I just – ugh – feel this weird current go through me? I feel like it’s some alien virus I’ve contracted. Or maybe It’s constipation? That’s gotta be it, right?”

Allura simply arches a brow, and Lance resists the urge to pick at his face mask and crinkle his nose. Normally, his go-to buddy for relaxation and facials would be Hunk, but he’s recently found that Allura isn’t that bad of a companion either. Her face doesn’t need detoxifying or any of that deep-cleansing, but she insisted on trying out his regimen and became fascinated with how the result made her skin so dewy. Now, it’s become somewhat of a regular thing for them to come into the kitchen during the castleship’s night cycle and complain about trivial stuff over milkshakes. Most of the complaining is on Lance’s end.

“Have you ever considered that maybe what you’re feeling around Keith isn’t what you think it is?”

“What do you mean?”

Allura points to her milkshake cup, indicating its emptiness, and Lance dutifully refills it from the large jug next to him and adds in as much froth at the top as he can, just the way she likes it. He slides it over to her, then starts to tap his fingernails against the tabletop, impatient for her reply.

“Well,” she starts, swooping her long, silvery mane away from her sticky face. “I believe that you are simply pushing down your actual feelings for Keith by trying to rekindle your rivalry with him.”

Lance gawks at her. “My _feelings_?”

“Yes? Surely, you can’t be that clueless. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“I don’t – I don’t –“ Lance splutters, hands gesticulating wildly in front of him, mouth popping open and closed like a flabbergasted goldfish.

Allura continues watching his floundering with a small tilt of her lips, amusement clearly written on her face. Lance wants to vehemently deny all of this and inform her, with great emphasis, that his ‘feelings’ for Keith are synonymous with annoyance and dislike. He wants to say that he has a crush on _her_ , but the words quickly die on his lips. He knows that those feelings had ebbed away long ago.

With a firm shake of his head, he takes a giant swig of his milkshake, forcing the overly-sweetened cream down his throat and trying not to choke on it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he finally rasps out, determined to hide his expression behind his cup.

“If you say so,” Allura says. For a moment, he thinks she’ll drop the subject, but then she meets his gaze again. “But I find it very odd that you can’t stop talking about him and search for his face every time you enter a room, even after a fight.”

“I don’t recall any such thing,” Lance says primly, setting his cup down. He tries to scowl, but the face mask is preventing him from contorting the entirety of his mouth, so he settles for folding his arms across his chest.

“You find Keith handsome, do you not? Perhaps you want to gaze deeply into his eyes – what colour are they again?” she taps a fingernail against the underside of her chin. “Grey?”

“Violet,” Lance mumbles, hunching his shoulders.

“Just violet?”

“Well, no, he’s got flecks of grey in them too, like gunmetal. And a bit of indigo as well? But that’s only if you look at them really closely and the light reflects off the irises just right, otherwise it’s easy to miss and –“ Lance stops short, catching sight of the smirk on Allura’s face, and he wonders why it isn’t his god-given bisexual right to keep himself from being such an impulsive babbler.

“That doesn’t clarify anything,” he says, fighting back a pout. “So what if I think he’s kind of attractive? Anyone with eyes can see that. It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything.”

“I never claimed you were in _love_ with him.”

“Well – whatever.” Lance lifts his chin and pretends not to notice the sparkle in Allura’s eyes. “I’m not.”

He rakes his fingers through his hair and grabs a fistful, pulling at it in frustration. He doesn’t want to think about this. He doesn’t want to think about _Keith._ But it’s been two days of slamming doors and avoiding any semblance of social interaction with each other, and Lance is kind of going crazy. He has to give Allura credit, though. She’s not entirely wrong about him wanting to rekindle their rivalry, even if it’s always been one-sided.

It’s not being into boys that concerns Lance. That, he’s known long before his enrollment into the Garrison. He’d told his sister Veronica, with hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, that although he prefers girls most of the time, he wouldn’t mind being with boys, either. It was put plain and simple.

“As a lesbian,” his sister had said, ruffling his hair, “I just want to say that I am _so_ glad I don’t have to be the only person in the family who’s not straight.”

And that was that.

But what bothers him is that this is _Keith_. Keith, the hothead. Keith, who can unfairly pull off the ‘armed and dangerous’ demeanor without even trying. Who pauses too long before laughing at a joke and rolls his eyes so much that sometimes Lance worries about his ocular health. Keith, a boy who is too hell-bent on saving the universe and protecting everyone around him to _possibly_ care about romance, of all things.

Unease itches its way up his chest.

“No way,” he declares aloud. “I can’t be interested in Keith that way. It just – doesn’t make sense. Do you know how different we are? I mean, come on!”

Allura pulls her legs up against her chest, artfully smoothing down the folds of her nightgown with just a skim of her fingers. “You humans have quite a tendency for being in denial,” she remarks. “But I think I’m going to disagree with you there. On the contrary, I’m quite surprised you two bumbling boozles haven’t figured it out.”

Lance politely decides not to ask what a bumbling boozle is supposed to be.

“You and Keith hold each other accountable — you force each other to admit to your wrongdoings. You are… what is the word?” she pauses to think for a moment, then holds up her hand. She makes a V with her index and middle fingers before slowly bringing them together. “Compatible.”

“Seriously?” Lance says, incredulous.

“You two may be different and clash constantly, but you also migrate toward each other. It’s just a natural kind of chemistry.” She gives him a full-on bedazzled smile, the kind she presents to the royals on diplomatic missions, but it’s hard to take seriously with the milk moustache she’s currently sporting on top of her green face mask.

Balancing his elbows on the edge of the table, Lance opens his mouth to fling back a counterstatement. Closes it. Squeezes his eyes shut. Drags in a long, deep breath, then slowly releases it.

“Compatible,” he repeats, rolling the word around on his tongue. It feels foreign. “Keith and me. Compatible. That can’t be it.” Part of him wants to laugh. The other wants to curl up in the fetal position and wail.

“Perhaps you should –”

“No, no. Wait. What’s his zodiac sign again? That’ll tell me about our compatibility for sure. Like, I know astrology is fake or whatever, but it’s got to have _some_ truth, right?”

Allura looks a bit skeptical, but maybe that’s just because she has no idea what he’s going on about.

He snaps his fingers and says, “Scorpio! He’s a Scorpio. I definitely remember them not being the best contenders for romance. I’ve gotta ask Hunk to prepare some data and charts from research and then maybe he can –”

“Lance. I think you are missing the point.”

“No, I’m not.” He points an accusing finger at her. “Stop it, Allura.”

She arches a questioning brow.

“You’re trying to make me talk about my feelings.”

“So?”

“So, you’re not Oprah. Leave my poor feelings alone.”

Her eyes narrow. “What is an Oprah?”

“She’s – you know what, never mind. I think we’ve left these masks on for too long. I am _so_ not in the mood to get dry patches on my T-zone again.”

With that, the discussion is abruptly drawn to a close, and as Lance walks over to the sink, raking his hair back away from his forehead, he makes a pointed effort to remain as nonchalant as he can, if only to stop Allura from giving him those all-too-knowing looks.

 He scoffs.  _Compatible_.

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> here's my  twitter and  
> tumblr if you want to come bug me :3


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